Ares should’ve exploded into a fit of anger like usual, but instead, he just growled. “If he touches a single hair on your head, even if it’s just his fingers grazing against you, I will rip his throat right out of his body as your whole pack watches, drench myself in his fucking blood, and challenge any of your mother’s warriors who tries to take you away from me.”
“Deal.” I nodded in approval. “But whatever happens tomorrow, promise me that you won’t kill my dad. He doesn’t deserve death.”
Ares stared down at me. “I won’t kill him.” He grabbed my jaw lightly in his hand, forcing me to look up at him. “But I can’t promise the same with Tony or your mother. If they touch you, I will kill them for betraying us and treating you like shit.”
I swallowed hard and nodded my head. I didn’t expect anything less.
“We run at dawn.”
Chapter 36
Ares
Aurora didn’t just love Mars. She fucking loved me too.
I held her tight to my chest, brought her to our bedroom, and lay down next to her, brushing a strand of her brown hair from her face. Part of me didn’t fucking believe it. How could she like me as I was?
All I had was pain. All I felt was heartbreak. All I wanted was to make other people hurt.
“Why do you love me?” I asked her, brows furrowed together.
Hearing those words had made me feel so good on the inside, but after sitting with them, they didn’t make sense. Aurora should hate me.
I deserved to be fucking hated.
Moonlight flooded into the room through our window, bouncing off Aurora’s big eyes. A look of sadness crossed her face, yet she held eye contact with me and brushed her fingers against my stubble. “Because you’re the only person who’s ever accepted me as an equal.”
My fingers dug into her hips as I remembered how her family had treated her when I showed up. I had known that something was off about them. They hadn’t even fucking asked her to fight with them during the attack.
She sighed deeply through her nose. “My old pack accepted me, but they never treated me as an alpha or even as a warrior. They always gave me work to do that didn’t matter, barely included me in anything, acted as if I needed all their protection.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I didn’t tell you about the stone because I thought … I thought you wouldn’t accept me as your mate either.”
I pulled her to my chest tightly, showing her that I wouldn’t hurt her and that I wouldn’t let anyone try to fucking hurt her again because part of me knew how she felt. Growing up with these polar opposite personalities, I found it so fucking hard to get people to accept it.
Sure, I’d had friends and girlfriends and lovers, but most of those fucking assholes hadn’t loved me. They all loved the alpha; they didn’t see the man behind the title. They didn’t know how to deal with both of us. They’d left. They’d fucking left when I needed them the most.
Holding Aurora tighter, I shook my head. It was only when I had taken over for Dad that people started respecting Ares. Mars had hidden away. Mars—my chest tightened—was terrified of them.
“I love you too, Aurora,” I whispered into her ear. “For letting me be myself around you.”
And for so much fucking more.
Chapter 37
Aurora
“It’s time to go,” I said to Ares, trying to wriggle out of his strong hold.
Light flooded into the room through our sheer black curtains. Ares wrapped his arm around my waist tighter and snuggled closer to me.
Accepting that I wasn’t going to be able to push him off that easily, I turned to face him and poked his stomach. “Don’t you want the stone?”
Ares growled lowly when I threw the blankets off us. “We run at dawn.”
“It is dawn.”
Smirking against my mark, he crawled between my legs, hooked two fingers around my underwear strings, and pulled them off me. “We have time.”
“Ares,” I said, brows furrowed together, “we …”
He pressed his lips to my core and stared up at me with sinful gold eyes. “We what?” he asked, tongue moving in small, rhythmic circles around my clit.
I swallowed hard, heat warming my core. “We have to—”
He pushed a finger inside of me, slowly pumping it in and out of me. “We have to what?”
My fingers curled into the sheets, and I arched my back. “Ares, we can’t.”
Pulling my legs onto his shoulders, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pinned my hips to the mattress, so I couldn’t squirm out of his hold. “I’m alpha. I say what we can and can’t do, Kitten.”
My breathing hitched, and I moaned his name. Heat warmed my core and flared out until my entire body was aching for a release. “Ares …” I closed my eyes, never before having felt such satisfaction from his lips.
“You’re mine.”
The pressure built higher and higher in my core until I could barely hold myself together.
“Mine to take whenever I want.” He continued to massage circles around my clit with his tongue. “Mine to pleasure every morning.”
I clenched around his fingers.
“Mine to make feel good.”
Someone banged on the door, and Liam cleared his throat. “Ares, the warriors are ready.”
“I’ll be out in a minute, Liam.”
I stared down at him with wide eyes and took a deep breath. Moments … I was mere moments away from …
“How long?”
Ares growled, his eyes turning a darker color gold. “When I’m finished fucking my mate.”
Ares thrust two fingers deeper into my pussy, pumping them hard and fast into me. I grasped the sheets, the tension too much, and squirmed up the bed.
Pinning me to the bed, Ares didn’t stop finger-fucking me until I slapped a hand over my mouth and was coming all over his fingers. Waves of ecstasy rolled through me, and my entire body relaxed against the
